The return of "Sony"

Due to its increase in sales, the Japanese multinational will again produce vinyl.

Sony will re-manufacture vinyl records after leaving that format in 1989, when it was delivered to the "compact disc" it had invented with Philips seven years earlier. Almost three decades later, the increase in sales of vinyl has convinced the Japanese multinational to resume production at two plants in Japan. This has been confirmed to Efe by a spokesperson for the company.

As a technological and music giant, since its record covers a third of the world market, Sony's return to vinyl confirms its good health in the current moribund panorama. While internet piracy is being uploaded to the CD, vinyl sales go up every season. In Japan they brushed the 800,000 units last year, eight times more than in 2010. Much more were in the United States, where they reached the 17.2 million albums, and in that musical paradise that is the United Kingdom, where they exceeded the digital format. This resurgence of vinyl is also seen in Spain, where sales have doubled to some 300,000 units.

After being buried during the 90s and 2000s by compact discs, which revolutionized music by cleaning their sound and their small size, the lifelong LPs are resurrected thanks to the nostalgic and young music lovers in love with their particular sound and its lovely format. Although no one doubts that digital reproduction is purer, it lacks the warmth of vinyl, with more nuances and sound textures precisely because it is not so perfect.

Diluted for years in digital technology, where it has lost its materiality in MP3 players or on the Internet, music regains its body and rediscovers the adolescent pleasure of listening to a record. Faced with the cold invisibility of the digital, touch and design are imposed: remove the vinyl from the album, place it on the turntable as it begins to spin hypnotic and pose the needle on the grooves. With the unique hiss of the LP, from "Carmina Burana" to Pink Floyd they sound more epic and enveloping as one navigates spellbound by the letters and designs of some discs, sometimes works of art comparable to the music they contain.

Taking into account the Japanese taste for excellence, the odd thing is not that Sony has now decided to manufacture vinyl again, but not before. Between the alleys of Shibuya, under the neons that illuminate the human anthill of its famous pedestrian crossing, the vinyl shops offer not only second-hand records or re-editions of rock and pop classics, but also novelties of "techno" and The electronic. Now, all the stars take out their albums in carefully and expensive editions on vinyl. Therefore, even Sony, the "prodigal" father of the CD, returns to the albums of a lifetime.

In 2016, 800,000 vinyls were sold in Japan; 17.2 million in the US and 300,000 in Spain.